Eye Color and Fast Food Consumption

Abstract

Worthy (1974) and Markle (1976) reported that individuals with dark eyes are more responsive to arousing stimuli in the environment than are individuals with light eyes. The environment abounds with television advertisements and billboard signs advertising fast food, as well as the restaurants themselves, and peer or family pressure t o eat there. Wc hypothesized that dark-eyed people respond to their over-all environments more by eating more fast foods. We gave a questionnaire on fast food consumption to 38 male and 22 female Caucasians who were federal government employees, ranging in age from 19 to 65 yr. Subjects self-reported their eye color: 32 had dark eyes (mean age = 40 yr.; 65.6% male), and 28 had light eyes (mean age = 36 yr.; 60.7% male). They then stated on a 9-point hedonic scale (dislike extremely to like extremely) how much they liked each of 24 different fast foods, e.g., hamburgers, pizza, French fries, etc. Then they reported how often they ate each at a fast food restaurant. All frequencies were converted to number per year. The mean hedonic rating across all items differed only slightly .by eye color: darkeyed people averaged 7.3 (moderate liking) and light-eyed ones 7.1. Total annual consumption differed more but not significantly: 314.2 fast food items per year for dark-eyed subjects compared to 214.9 for light-eyed ones (T. = 1.66, d f = 45.82, P = .104). However, for 17 of the 24 items, the mean frequencies differed in the predicted direction, with dark-eyed subjects consuming more (with the sign test, P = .032). And the variability of the two groups differed markedly. The dark-eyed group had a standard deviation for annual frequency of 301.1, whereas the light-eyed group,had one of 144.5 ( F = 4.34, P < .001). The significance of this difference was further confirmed by the Scheffe test for the heterogeneity of variance, as described by Smits (1979). With 1 and 9 d f , the mean F ratio was 7.9 ( P < .025). That 17 of the 24 items differed in the predicted direction provides modest support for the current hyp~~thesis. That darkeyed people are more variable among themselves suggests that their behavior correlates more strongly with the naturally varying levels of stimulation in the environment. .. . . . REFERENCES